


Oath

by Syrinx



Series: Integrity [3]
Category: Thoroughbred
Genre: Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-01-15
Updated: 2009-01-15
Packaged: 2017-10-07 07:24:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/62793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Syrinx/pseuds/Syrinx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She knows, without explanation, the answer to her question.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Oath

There’s a bench swing on the porch. There didn’t used to be a bench swing, sort of like how it didn’t used to be painted yellow. There used to be roses on a trellis on the side of the house, and I think the trellis is still there, at least, under the snow and ice. I think. I don’t know what to think. I do know that I didn’t think I’d ever be back here.

The boxes are still mostly sitting untouched around the house. Christina is spending most of her days at a local preschool, and I’m supposed to be settling in. Instead I’ve been envisioning what this house used to look like sixteen years ago, when I first moved here and hated it for being something else. Isn’t it fitting, that here I am again, hating it for all the same reasons?

Sometimes, I’ll catch myself staring out the window of the kitchen. Townsend Acres is outside that window, the ground all white and the sky a startling blue. It’s so beautiful it makes my heart hurt. It makes me think of Wonder’s youth, of being fourteen again, of falling in love. These are all the wrong things to be thinking about now.

Two months. I feel like I should be counting the days, but I wouldn’t know what to count down to. The final break, I suppose. I was in Wonder’s stall when it happened. It was raining, and the door was open, letting in the fresh autumn air. I didn’t hear him until he was there, damp and solid as a rock on the other side of the stall. My first reaction was a smile, and remembering that kills me now, because he didn’t smile back. He always smiled back. If he was tired, or angry, or anything other than happy, he’d try for me. It was one of the things I loved.

“Ashleigh,” he said quietly. I could barely hear him, but it was there, the soft voice he’d use with a nervous horse. “I’m tired, Ash.”

“You could let Ian make these trips alone,” I said. It was more than a suggestion. It had to be at this point. _I want you here._ It was something I wanted to scream every day he left, every time he called, every moment I saw his image on the screen of our television. I wanted him there, and he had made the choice to get as far from me as he could.

“Maybe,” he said, looking down the aisle, at the floor, anywhere but at me. “Maybe after all of this is done, I will. Ashleigh, I think I can’t do this anymore.”

I didn’t say anything.

“There is no easy way to say this,” he said in a rush, suddenly looking right at me, and I could look nowhere else but at him. It felt like the earth was sliding out from under my feet as I pressed a hand against Wonder’s shoulder, my spine stiff. “I need a divorce.”

Silence. Who knows how long it stretched. The rain kept coming down, and something in my stomach was twisting, coiling like a snake without anything to strike. It rattled and writhed, delirious with terror. I couldn’t say yes, but I wouldn’t say no. I wouldn’t refuse him anything.

“Why?” It’s the only word I can think to say.

“Since the accident,” he started, and stalled, wordless. I looked at him, making myself, forcing my aching eyes to his face. “I want to have children, Ashleigh.”

“You _have _a child, Mike.”

The look he gave me was pity. Was crushed and tormented. And I knew, without explanation, the answer to my question.

The scar on my stomach twinges.


End file.
